


not books but poems

by Contra



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 10:39:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18636475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Contra/pseuds/Contra
Summary: History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes and Steve Rogers spent his entire life trapped between the verses.





	not books but poems

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [This Softer World Comic](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=680)

 

 

It doesn’t start in that alley in Brooklyn except it does, with some bully and Steve on his knees in the dust, empty stomach, broken face, and Bucky, but it will stay like this forever and they don’t even know it yet.

“I’m sorry,” he says and it doesn’t mean _forgive me_ , “what did you say?”

And that meaningless, nameless thug repeats his ugly slurs, like they all repeat them, like one million or one billion or one trillion or more will repeat them over the years, Steve doesn’t remember exactly what it was, because at some point they all blur together

(or maybe he does, in some quiet part of himself, because the truth is they hurt, even though he’d never admit it)

and Bucky knocks that guy out cold and asks “are you alright?”

 

Steve is, for a while.

 

As things go, he guesses, no one is forever.

 

                               The rest is in the history books.

 

Except history was nothing like this, he’ll think, decades later, looking at the cleaned-up straight-laced icon story they’ve put on display at the Smithsonian. History was Bucky singing _Bay mir bistu shayn_ in their kitchen, history was the things shouted at them in New York, history was all their hearts and faces broken in strange dusty alleys during the war.

It was the short service, the one they held for Bucky, the same fallen soldier’s service that’s been held millions of times over the last years, where no one says stuff like _he’s gone too soon_ , because that’s fucking obvious, isn’t it, and everyone pretends they’re not sneaking glances at their comrades wondering who’s going to be next,

(and it might not have started that day in Brooklyn)

but it sure as hell doesn’t end with Steve on his knees afterwards, thinking and praying, _oh please let it be me._

 

Even though it is him, for a while.

 

And then he comes back and everything’s different, except Bucky’s still gone.

SHIELD gives Steve a modern apartment with appliances he doesn’t care to figure out and so much food he could choke on it and he’s still hungry no matter how much he eats.

It tastes like dust, anyways.

And then he doesn’t eat for a week, just to see what will happen, and it’s nothing, nothing fucking happens and with a growing dread Steve realizes no one is forever, but he might be.

Until he’s training with Natasha and she kicks him in his face and he collapses, falls to his knees, and apparently his vitals are fucked, he’s got multiple deficiencies, for one brief moment he feels almost like himself again, except they send him even more food, during the war this might have fed the entire Howling Commandoes.

Steve eats alone.

 

 

And then Bucky comes back and everything’s still different, because Bucky’s still gone.

 

                               But by this point they’ve already learned to play hard and fast with history, you’ve got to, because the bitch plays for time.

 

So what if Bucky doesn’t know who he is most of the time, if the entire second half of the 20th century seems more like a story someone made up, isn’t that what the past is, anyway?, because Steve has a modern apartment with a fridge and a microwave and even a fucking KitchenAid, and Bucky stands there and hums _Bay mir bistu shayn._

They laugh and they eat until they’re almost not hungry anymore.

 

(Bucky says sorry, he means _forgive me_ , and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing to forgive, except everything that ever happened, but to be fair, that isn’t on them.

In the quiet space of their breathing, nothing happens for a very long time.)

 

If things get lost in the cracks, let them.

Maybe history is a gigantic ravine and they just somehow fell in.

That’s how it feels at least, in the brief moments of eternity when everything is alright.

 

It doesn’t end either, surprisingly, with Thanos wielding all the power in the universe and Steve kneeling, clutching the dust that Bucky used to be.

 

He wants to kill Thanos so much, Thanos and all the ugly old things he keeps saying, and then Thanos is dead - he still wants.

 

Time is a lie just like history, the only marker he has for it afterwards is the last apple Bucky bought at the market, and the way he watches it spoil. Five years is what the books say, though.

 

Five years is nothing, in the grand scheme of things, except five years are five years, and death is death, and hunger is hunger.

Steve isn’t sure if he’s anything at all anymore, except that he’s sorry. No one forgives him. Bucky is gone.

 

 

It’s not vengeance and it’s not absolution when Stark and Lang and Banner start talking about time travel, he wants to shake them and tell them time is a lie at the heart of it and he wants to shake time until Bucky falls out. He can appreciate the irony of the infinity stones though – it was history that broke him, and now he gets to break it back.

And as these things go, there’s another Thanos and they kill him again.

 

“Forgive me,” is what he asks Bucky when he comes back, his lips full of dust from the explosion, and he’s not even sure what he’s asking for when he falls to his knees.

And Bucky murmurs unintelligible things into the ragged ravine of their breathing, hands clutching limbs in a tangled mess on the floor.

History might never forgive them and the feeling is mutual, but they’re alive, they’re forever, Bucky will buy apples next week and hum songs in their kitchen, this isn’t the end either, but for now they’re alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Bay mir bistu shayn [English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe2UXccid40) // [Yiddish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSVw0iye9Gw)


End file.
